About Me

Dr. Anderson strives to improve psychological outcomes for Black youth through culturally- and contextually-relevant parenting programs focused on racism and discrimination, effective coping strategies, and community building, participation, and collaboration. One of her primary goals is to create interventions and youth centers which support the mental and physical health of Black youth in urban communities.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Anderson uses mixed methods in clinical interventions to study racial discrimination and socialization in Black families to reduce racial stress and trauma and improve psychological well-being and family functioning. She investigates how protective familial mechanisms such as parenting and racial socialization operate in the face of risks linked to poverty, discrimination, and residential environment. Dr. Anderson is particularly interested in how these factors predict familial functioning and subsequent child psychosocial outcomes, especially when enrolled in family-based interventions. She has recently developed a five-session intervention entitled EMBRace (Engaging, Managing, and Bonding through Race) to alleviate racial stress and trauma in parents and adolescents in order to facilitate healthy parent-child relationships, parent and adolescent psychological well-being, and racial assertiveness as a coping mechanism.

Dr. Anderson’s master's thesis investigated factors explaining variance in parenting behaviors, including ethnicity, residential location, and measurement type. Her interest in culturally-specific approaches led her to consult with Charlottesville community groups and schools in Washington, D.C. on interventions. Additionally, she co-authored grants for Charlottesville families and services. Riana was awarded the Institute for Educational Sciences (IES) fellowship (2012–2014) and worked with the Foundations of Cognition and Learning lab in the Center for the Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning within the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Her doctoral dissertation utilized a mixed-methods approach to explore the stress created by poverty on the parent-child relationship as students enter kindergarten. To support her interest in better understanding improved parent-child relationships and the reduction of stress in Black parents, Dr. Anderson was awarded the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (2015-2016) to train with Dr. Howard Stevenson at The University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, Riana was selected to join the 2016-2019 inaugural cohort of Culture of Health Leaders, a new program co-led by the National Collaborative for Health Equity and CommonHealth ACTION with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for leadership development training and to collaborate and innovate to solve persistent challenges and advance a national Culture of Health.

Dr. Anderson’s clinical experiences revolve around an ecological and family systems framework as a primary conceptualization for understanding the interplay of the child and her surrounding systems. She has worked within a day treatment facility for children, a university counseling center and clinic, a community mental health clinic, an alternative high school, and a Head Start center servicing students and families, specializing in the care of ethnic-minority clients.

Dr. Anderson aims to facilitate healing in Black families with practical applications of her research and clinical services, as well as through teaching/mentorship and policy recommendations through the following goals:

Goal #1: To improve the successful outcomes for Black youth via: culturally-relevant coping strategies, culturally- and contextually-relevant parenting interventions, and community building, participation, and collaboration.

Goal #2: To create and replicate interventions and youth centers which support the mental and physical health and educational goals of Black youth in urban communities.

Riana was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She enjoys all things food, sports, and travel, and is adventurous - except for the outdoors. She enjoys listening to and playing music and adores cooking for friends and family (not to mention herself!).